


Abyssus Abyssum Invocat

by ladysunflower



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, F/M, Not Epilogue Compliant, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-20
Updated: 2018-08-20
Packaged: 2019-06-30 01:32:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15741393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladysunflower/pseuds/ladysunflower
Summary: Hermione is thrown back to the time of the Founders, beginning a long, sad chain of events. Originally posted to FF.net in July 2005, but re-edited to be DH (but not Epilogue) compliant.





	Abyssus Abyssum Invocat

**Author's Note:**

> The original fic shall remain unedited on FF.net for posterity, as it is only HBP compliant, but a fancy struck me to update it to the current canon, and so I am posting this slightly changed version to AO3.

It was a freak occurrence.

No one knew quite how it happened, or what had happened to Hermione Granger. One moment, she was walking around the Black Lake with her friends, having just sat the last of seven N.E.W.T. examinations at the culmination of her repeated seventh year at Hogwarts. The next moment, the air around her fizzled, crackling like the static on a wireless when the signal is lost. Her form had flickered, becoming two dimensional and shaded in blue; the crinkled trails of ethereal energy passing up through it not unlike tracking lines from a Muggle video cassette.

And then she disappeared with a faint buzz.

Her friends stumbled forward, screaming out her name, but there was no answer. One of them, Ginny Weasley, ran to the school to inform the teachers and Ministry officials still there of the incident.

But it was of no use. No book in the Hogwarts library or the official Ministry library or the _unofficial_ Ministry library could describe the phenomenon. No ransom note came from stray Death Eaters still on the lam – there was no indication, anywhere, as to what had happened, foul play or no, and to where she had disappeared.

Hermione Granger was gone.

* * *

Not so far away, but very long ago, a certain Muggle-born witch ended up in the middle of a dark forest, staring up at a very intimidating wizard. She had initially confused him for a Death Eater, and the fear was evident in her eyes as she aimed her wand at him - much to the confusion of the man before her, who had not been expecting a woman at all, let alone one dressed so oddly.

He attempted to speak to her, and for some odd reason he spoke in what appeared to be Old English, though Hermione could only decipher maybe one word out of a dozen. He reached down to give her a hand up, and taken aback by his genial manner, Hermione lower her wand - though still on her guard.  The man appeared to be unthreatening; she could tell by his tone that he was questioning and polite.  But she could only communicate a few words, her oral Old English failing spectacularly given her use of modern pronunciations.  She did not understand him and tried to indicate as much to him, even switching to Latin with even worse results.  Under any other circumstance, Hermione imagined that the situation was rather comical - if only she wasn’t so confused.

Eventually, clearly frustrated, he beckoned her to follow him, and after five minutes of listening to the man chatter at her as they walked, they emerged from the forest to find a castle near a great lake.  Hermione reckoned that it looked like a smaller Hogwarts, until an eerie resonance, a haunting familiarity in her surroundings struck her.  If she didn’t know better, the castle _was_ Hogwarts.  But how could this be?

An hour and one Translingus Potion later, Hermione found out that not only was it indeed Hogwarts, but shockingly, it was a time nearly a thousand years previous to her birth. She had been accidentally Summoned - a transportation technique that was a predecessor of Apparition and Portkeys, and with a greater chance for mishap, as was clearly evidenced, as here she was in lieu of Hermes Boru of Grange, Ireland. 

And Summoned by none other than a young Salazar Slytherin.

* * *

It had taken one week after her arrival for Hermione to befriend all the Founders, an occurrence which held a high honor to her; a significance she could not properly communicate to her new friends.  They thought it quaint, how she practically fell over herself in enthusiasm at their company and esteem.  They had decided, for the betterment of all involved, that the conditions surrounding her arrival had best be kept secret. 

Thus, she took on the pseudonym of Hermione Sophismatio - a surname suggested by Ravenclaw - and the fabricated background that came with. Hermione did not mention to them that she recognized the name from _Hogwarts, A History_ as not only Hogwarts’s first graduate, but the first teacher to come to staff after the original four Founders. She did not wish to have any future decisions based on such knowledge, though she hoped fervently that, despite the growing evidence otherwise, she would be able to return home before then.

It had taken six months after her arrival for Hermione to master Latin and the current dialect of Old English, and rejoin the Hogwarts student body. For though she had just sat her N.E.W.T.s prior to being Summoned to this time, how could she ever pass the opportunity to study under the Founders?  Because of her past (or future) education, she knew much more than the others who came to study at the school, and yet somehow, much less. There was always something new to learn, though - some of which was knowledge that had been long lost by her time, and she happily gobbled it all up, ever pursuant of that golden apple of enlightenment.

It had taken eighteen months after her arrival for the Founders to finally graduate her, the first for the school, as she knew would happen. Nevertheless, Hermione was pleased with her accomplishment. She stayed on at Hogwarts, still researching a way to return to her own time, her desire to see Harry and Ron once more a strong motivation.

It had taken thirty months after her arrival for Hermione to give up on returning to the future. The magical technology simply did not exist for intentional time travel of this magnitude, and nobody could figure out how Salazar had managed it to begin with – though Rowena had secretly confided to Hermione that she suspected his runework to be the culprit, as it had always been his greatest fault.  The only reason he had done the Summoning to begin with was the fact that he was the only one familiar with Grange, Ireland – an integral component to a successful Summoning.  The opportunity of Summoning since lost, Hermes Boru had eventually made it to the school through Muggle means.

Indeed, someone would have to replicate Salazar’s mistakes in the future, and furthermore, would have to be completely knowledgeable about the then archaic ritual. Given, however, the fact that Salazar claimed any mistake to be nonexistent - Hermione’s arrival was a magical fluke - and that the ritual was practically taboo knowledge in her time, Hermione doubted her chances that anyone would suddenly pull her back to her time.  Even if she managed to leave instructions for the future generations, there was no way she could ensure that they would be found in her time.

The best solution she could contemplate would be to be placed under a Status Charm, which would have to be renewed by an external source every few dozen years. It was not at all reliable, though, as she would be dependent on others to not only renew the charm, but also, to protect her vulnerable form while Static. If the charm was not renewed, instead of simply waking up, Hermione would waste away into death instead.  It was not a feasible solution, and so therefore, Hermione had given up on ever returning to her time, and rather, tried to make the best of the situation.

It had taken three years after her arrival for Hermione - still living in the castle despite not being a student - to be frustrated enough at her four friends, arguing over qualifications for admissions, to suggest a House system. They had found it to be a brilliant idea, and had created the Sorting Hat – a suggestion which was not Hermione’s, much to the relief of her paranoid and slightly guilty mind, afraid that she might be altering time.

It had taken five years after her arrival for Hermione to be the first post-Founding teacher hired, taking over Charms for Godric, as the influx of new students due to the Housing system had overwhelmed the Founders.

It had taken seven years after her arrival for Hermione to finally give in to five years of Salazar’s consistent advances and allow to be courted. She had been suspicious of him for years - even when she finally agreed - knowing full well of his disdain for Muggle-borns, and the fact that he knew she was one. Again her paranoid mind spoke to her, suspecting that he may be only trying to get close to her in order to use her knowledge of the future to his advantage. It did not help that he continually asked her about such matters, either. But still, she relented, and thoroughly enjoyed being courted by him.

It had taken nine years after her arrival for Hermione to fall in love with him, and to painfully realize that he had fallen for her long ago when she had still denied him. Such, she reckoned, might have been the reason he never owned up to his Summoning mistake – he didn’t wanted her to leave. She thus truly forsake the future then, content in live in the past, finding her love in the oddest and darkest of places.

She knew what he was, a Dark wizard, what he meant to the world of her time, and yet she did not care. Her time with him was the happiest in her life – he forever stimulated her mind and fueled her ambition for prowess, teaching her the most archaic and wondrous of magical arts – those long forbidden and forgotten in her time.  He also had such a mischievous, humorous streak to him that she could swear that the Weasley twins were somehow related, and constant were the prank wars between the now competing Houses. The Slytherin she knew was much different than the man his future House made him out to be. The man she knew loved her and she could not be happier.

It had taken ten years after her arrival for Hermione and Salazar to be wed. Though it was a joyous occasion, Hermione went through the motions of the ceremony as if in a dream, as if she did not believe it were really happening. As a wedding gift, Salazar gave her a locket with their portraits painted inside, a protective amulet that would ward off most curses, hexes and jinxes. As a wedding gift, Hermione had requisitioned a heavy ring made for him, embossed with his seal, from the most renowned Wizarding goldsmith in Rome.

She did not see it until it arrived by owl directly to him.

When he opened the pouch, and put on the ring, she was startled to recognize it, though it was missing the infamous stone that would be set there in a future that seemed increasingly distant. And of course, she knew what would become of her wedding gift alongside the ring: Voldemort’s Horcruxes. Hermione did not sleep for three days after this realization, her straying mind reliving the nightmares that the cursed locket had produced while they were on the run. Yet in the end, she kept the locket and let Salazar, unknowing of what it was to become, keep the ring.

It had taken twelve years after her arrival for Hermione to give birth to a son to Slytherin. She already knew what Salazar was going to name him, but still, she hoped to be wrong. Nevertheless, Callidas Slytherin entered the world one late September morning. The day that should have been the happiest in Hermione’s life, turned instead into the beginning of her descent into madness.

* * *

Hermione had not been able to look Salazar in the eye since their son’s birth, the locket weighing heavy on her breast. She spent an inordinate amount of time in Callidas’s nursery, preferring to sleep on a conjured cot there, instead of the warmth of her husband’s bed. Helga and Rowena had excused it as the eccentrics of new motherhood - but in private, they worried for Hermione’s health and her sanity.

She would not confide her troubles to Salazar, or any of the others. And how could she? How could she explain her guilt to anyone? Guilt at being the ancestor and cause of not only a long line of Dark wizards and the many deaths associated, but ultimately Voldemort himself. Failing a confidant, Hermione wallowed in her self-pity, cooing to her beautiful, dark-haired son, and smothering him in love to stave the coming darkness.

Her dreams were terrors, full of accusations from friends, the fantasized tortuous deaths of a millennium of victims known and unknown – all blaming her.  Though she _knew_ that she may not have ever been able to change time in any case, she still felt responsible for a disastrous future in which Harry had not known his parents, in which neither Remus Lupin or Nymphadora Tonks lived to see their son grow up, in which George Weasley was alone in a way that his friends and family could never truly understand. In some nightmares, she managed to effect a change that proved to be worse – ones in which Voldemort ruled - and in every dream…her fault, her fault. She had known better, known what it would entail, and yet Hermione had succumbed to her baser desires and married Salazar Slytherin and begat his heir.

Hermione Granger could not forgive herself.

* * *

It was with this mentality that Hermione took Callidas, and fled the castle one cold December night, not a week before Yule. She did not leave a word with anyone at Hogwarts, yet she knew that the moment he found his son and - now estranged - wife missing, Salazar would find a way to track her down.

Hermione took her son to a remote forest in the Scottish countryside, far from any towns, and placed her squalling babe in the snow. But as she pointed her wand at his beautiful face, in preparation to cast the Killing Curse - a curse which she was certain had not been invented yet - she found her resolve leave her. Her heart ached, and she covered her mouth with one hand, choking on her sobs, tears streaming down her face. She felt sick, her stomach twisting and turning. She could not kill her son - as much as she knew that she had to - for all that she loved him and his father.

He wailed at her, cold and not understanding why she was not keeping him warm, holding him close. She almost picked him up, but instead, wrapped her other hand around her wand, still pointing it at his forehead. Hermione bit her lower lip until it bled, but yet, she could not kill him.

Eventually, she lowered her wand. She could not do the deed herself, but she could not allow him to live. While he shook from the cold, lips and fingers already blue, she removed her locket and placed it around him, his chubby hands grasping at the warm metal links. Perhaps one day they would find his infant body and identify him – or perhaps not. Either way, he needed it, deserved it, more than she. Biting back another sob, Hermione turned on the spot and Apparated away, leaving Callidas to die in the snow.

Hermione Granger hated herself.

* * *

Salazar found her - finally, as she knew he would - on the island that would later hold Azkaban. The future Wizarding prison was where she belonged and so thus she awaited him on this dismal island, hoping against all hope that he would have located and saved Callidas before going to her, but knowing that without a wand or prior preparations, the boy was too young to have a magical signature strong enough to be tracked.

Salazar Slytherin appeared frightful when he finally realized that Callidas was not with her, and had demanded she reveal his location. Hermione raised her wand, and before he could defend himself – he did not expect it as she was, after all, his own _wife_ – she cast a Dark curse at his groin. Her husband doubled over in pain while she impassively watched on. A small part of her cried out for him, wanting to go to him and reverse the curse while she still had time, but the rest of her was dead with her son and merely waited for Salazar to recover. It was a curse which would be developed three hundred years later, in order to neuter dangerous hybrid creatures from producing monstrous offspring. Fortunately, it worked just as well on humans, and Slytherin would have no idea what she did to him.

By the time Slytherin recovered from the pain, it was already too late to be reversed. It was Hermione’s guarantee that there would be no more children after Callidas. It was to her greatest regret that she had not thought of it before - or another method of rendering him infertile - after marrying him. But she had not been thinking and it was too late now. He swore at her.

She snapped her wand, casting the pieces to his feet. This action immediately silenced the man, and his eyes glittered strangely at her in the early morning light.

“What have you done with Callidas?” he asked her in an odd voice, and Hermione heard him hold his breath for her answer.

It had been five hours since she left her son in the dead of the night, and so she answered truthfully: “I killed him.” Her voice was hollow, distant-sounding, inhuman and not her own, but yet silent tears betrayed her, rolling down her cheek.  She stared stonily ahead, unable to meet his eyes.

Salazar made a strangled noise and fell to his knees before her. “No,” he whispered hoarsely, voice full of disbelief.

“Why?” His eyes suddenly took on a new light, full of rage and darkness and grief. Such a profound sadness that Hermione nearly cried out again, wanting to fall into his arms. But he would not accept her comfort now. It was too late. Too late. Before, perhaps she could have lied…but not now. Yet another mistake.

“WHY!” he screamed at her, face inches from hers, green eyes flashing dangerously as he grabbed her shoulders and shook until her head whipped listlessly to and fro.

But Hermione did not answer him, would not answer him, could not answer him. She hung her head, unwilling to look at him any longer.

“You…you…Muggle bitch…how could you? Your very own flesh and blood, your firstborn son! I always knew…I always knew one could never trust a Muggle…but I thought you were different; you were not of our time, you were more intelligent than any of them, all of them combined! But you’re all just the same, aren’t you? It’s in your blood, to back-stab, to bite the hand that nurtures you? Like a wild beast that does not know any better!”

Hermione felt her heart stop, and a slow, cold realization dawned on her. He had never before spoken of Muggles in such a fashion – he disliked them, oh yes, but he had never before expressed such harsh sentiments about them. _Oh no_ , she thought, _oh no_...

“What did you curse me with? What was that?” he asked abruptly, his voice with a steely edge to it. He was as dead to her as she to him, and their son to them both.

“An infertility hex,” she replied sullenly. He slapped her viciously in response.

“You _bitch_ , you Muggle bitch…” he repeated softly, but the anger was gone from his voice. A sudden sob betrayed him and he cried out, “I loved you! I let myself fall for you. I wanted nothing more in the world than you…”

She did not reply, and with ferocity he struck her again and again, wanting a response from her: anger, fear, vindication, anything. She remained silent and took the violence he bestowed upon her.

In the end, his anger rose up again, and he stood, towering above her. It was then, in the moment before he killed her, with his wand pointed at her forehead, did Hermione finally allow herself to feel again. But it was not fear; rather, it was an ironic humor, as some remote part of her mind recognized their positions as the exact same as when they had first met. She realized with satisfaction that it was fitting.

She did not hear him utter any words, and yet a light flared out from his wand and struck her square in the forehead, killing her instantly.

It had been a green light. 

* * *

In a different time, in a different place, Harry had finally garnered permission from the Ministry to visit Lucius Malfoy in Azkaban. It had been a year since Hermione’s disappearance, and not a day went by where Harry didn’t think about her. Their research into her disappearance had been fruitless; the current prevailing theory was that the Dark Lord had laid curse-traps around Hogwarts prior to the final battle in which Harry had defeated him, and through a stroke of superior bad luck, Hermione had stumbled upon one that had remained hitherto undetected.

Indeed, it had been Narcissa Malfoy who had finally offered up a visit to her imprisoned husband for clues. If there was any former Death Eater who would have been present when said traps were laid, he would be the most likely to speak of them, if only for the hint of lessening his time served. In fact, the newly elected Minster for Magic, Kingsley Shacklebolt, accompanied Harry for precisely this reason, to determine if the information provided would be enough to commute his sentence.

It turned out that Malfoy had a cell in-between the Lestrange brothers, a fact that made Harry more nervous than anything. Being in such nefarious company might make Lucius less likely to speak, for the Lestrange brothers promised dark acts unspeakable anyone who ventured within listening distance to their cell block. Harry shared a look with Kingsley, and knew that after they had gotten all the information they could - possibly a memory or two – the Lestrange brothers would need to be Obliviated for Malfoy’s protection.

Azkaban, despite the lack of its old Dementor guardians, was still a cold and dreary place. It did not need soul-sucking demons to whisk the happiness out of a person, and Harry had had a very bad feeling about the place the moment he stepped on the island.

In the middle of questioning Malfoy, a ghost passed through Harry – which was in and of itself not an unusual occurrence, as many roamed the hallways of the prison; often were they so detached from reality, they did not realize what was going on around them. What surprised Harry was when he turned to look at the specter he thought that it bore striking resemblance to…

“Hermione?”

The ghost paused, as it had apparently not noticed him as it passed by, and slowly turned to him, looking at him oddly.

“Sal?” the ghost asked. But not a second after it asked, its eyes lingered on his forehead.

“Harry!” the ghost of Hermione launched herself at him, as if forgetting her condition, but stopped short of touching him again.

“Hermione…what…how…how did you die?” Harry stuttered, his heart breaking. He had known it would be foolish to hope that if she had been captured, she was alive after all this time, and yet, he had still hung onto the belief that she could be out there, trying to get home. He was puzzled at how her ghost could have come to reside on Azkaban and yet he could already guess: Death Eaters.

“Oh, Harry, I’m so sorry, so sorry, it’s all my fault,” Hermione began to wail piteously, and Harry could only gape at her. What was her fault? The inmates nearby could not help but listen to the ghost lament, throwing her curious, though slightly bored, glances.

“What, Hermione? What’s your fault?”

“Everything, Harry, everything. Years of wars and persecution. Centuries of Muggle hate. Generations of Dark wizards. I’ve watched them come through here, all claiming to be doing his work. Even…even Voldemort is my fault,” she finally bit out, as if she did not want to admit it.

“What?” Hermione now had the full attention of everyone around them, and even Lucius Malfoy narrowed his eyes at the ghost.

“It’s all my fault, my poor baby, my poor sweet baby. I’m a horrid woman, Harry, and I did a terrible thing. He killed me, he killed me, and I deserved it!”

“What! Who killed you, Hermione?” Harry’s blood was pounding in his ears. He would get revenge for Hermione, if it was the last thing he did.  Hermione did not deserve to die like this, not ever.

“I should have known,” she continued to wail, not answering him. A confused, almost thoughtful look passed over her ghastly face. “I don’t understand, though, how his line continued. He must have found a way to reverse the hex.”

Now Harry was thoroughly confused. “What?” he repeated.

Her dead eyes fell onto his. Her voice was haunted and quiet.

“I betrayed him, Harry. I betrayed Salazar Slytherin.”

* * *

Once, long ago, one of the Four Founders left forever, after the months of arguing for the removal of Muggle-borns failed. The other three knew why he had suddenly taken up the old flag with new vigor and a thin veneer of hate. They had been as shocked as he to discover the truth about the girl who had entered their lives as abruptly as she left, changing them all profoundly.

They could not agree with Slytherin’s stance, though. It was disturbing, yes, but all could not be judged on the actions of one. So he had left and hidden himself away from them, cutting off all contact. Six months after his departure, a snake delivered a letter to Gryffindor, a familiar ring attached by a ribbon as proof to what letter’s contents claimed.

Slytherin had killed himself.

The three grieved for their friend, for his dead son barely given a chance to live, and yes, even for the woman that had once been in their hearts as much as Salazar had.

It was that day that they decided together that no one would ever know of Slytherin’s true tale. All mention of Hermione’s marriage to Salazar, and the birth of Callidas, was stricken from the record. Rumor of the truth still spread around the world, mainly by students who had known them, but those who tried to write down what they had heard found themselves unable to scribe it legibly – indeed, all that would appear on the parchment, in lieu of words, would be scribbles. It was the premature form of a Fidelius Charm, and by the time that the last of the Founders had died and the charm finally failed, the rumor was so disfigured that the actual truth would never be known.

The three were glad of their decision one September morning when, exactly eleven years to the day of his birth, an oddly familiar-looking boy showed up wearing a very familiar locket. He was Scottish, claimed to be Muggle-born and went by the name Wiley, but he spoke Parseltongue and there was no denying the resemblance.

None of the three told the boy of his true history of his heritage during his tutelage at Hogwarts – they did not have the heart. So they doted on him, treating him as a favoured student, to ease their guilty hearts. Like his mother, he stayed on after his graduation to teach. He would become the first Headmaster for the school after the last of the three, Ravenclaw, finally took her death bed.

She left him a scroll and a heavy gold ring, the former of which contained the partial truth of his parentage – she let him know his true name, as the son of Salazar Slytherin – and the latter which secured his claim as Slytherin’s heir. She told him nothing else.

Time would tell, however, that it was unfortunate that she choose to do so. With her death, the proto-Fidelius Charm was broken, and the rumor mill abounded once again, now with written record. The story that Slytherin’s son eventually heard would have made the truth pale in comparison.

He forsook his Muggle family, and went by his true name of Callidas Slytherin, claiming his rightful heritage as the lost heir - something many had suspected for a while, but none had had the audacity to inquire about.

It would be Callidas who would build the chamber far beneath the school, and hatch the basilisk to keep the school clean of dirty blood. It would be Callidas who founded the Knights of Walpurgis, training generations of Dark wizards, instilling within them a deep-set hatred of Muggle-borns and all things Muggle. It would eventually be that society that Voldemort would stumble upon, breathing new life into it after the fall of Grindelwald, and from it create his first Death Eaters.

It would be Callidas that drafted the propaganda that would still be in use nine hundred years hence. Centuries of strife and discord, over a tale that was not true – though sadly, the actual truth, had he known, may still have been enough reason, anyway.

And all because of a freak occurrence.

**Author's Note:**

> The implied plotline was that some Muggles found Callidas in the snow and raised him as their own.
> 
> Abyssus abyssum invocat – basically, it means, "One mistake leads to another." Or for a more sinister stance, "Evil begets evil." From Slytherin's first bungling the Summoning, to Hermione first trying to ignore and then later thwart fate, to even Rowena hiding the truth from Callidas...a series of mistakes that led to even more dire ones.


End file.
